Posted by mariela on April 14, 192003 at 01:44:20:
This play shows how art and reality can be blured together with the truth of a country's situation. The play is very bold and courageous. It is very visual as well as auditory in delivering its comentary of an abusive government.
Following are some interesting parts in the play that I would further like to discuss in class:
Page 77: the teacher's ending of associations with "torture-dissuasion"
Page 78: The coordinator's horizontal hand gesture as opposed to a veritcal one which may be more condemning.
Page 80: "You must say "error" and press the button. That is your job! Save the commentary!" Here we see how, as the functionary, the coordinator is becoming more scientific or mechanical leaving no space for interpreation or consciousness about what is going on before him.
Scene 4 is all about an experiment - like what goes on in the oppressed country, it leaves out anything that has to do with education, responsability or an uncurrupt law.
In scene 7 men and women are told when and what to look at. The figure of a woman (the young girl with the gun, the usherette etc..) are used as subservient messengers of what is wrong, while at the same time those in the audience are forced or suggested to be left out from seeing what is going on - maybe because they can't handle it or are vain or like mentioned in scene 13 while making mention of modern theatre, where there is "No respect for ladies"
In scene 14 "His blood is obviously fake." we can see how Gambaro separates theatre from reality, but still allows us to remember that those in the play cannot and those maybe observing choose to see it as something removed from themselves. Another instance in this scene along these terms is when Happy Music is played. It is a reminder that bad things can and do happen when drama or oppression are going on.
At the end of Scene 17 we are made to feel how helpless victims may feel when they can't scream, pretend or see that doing so won't improve their conditions. That regardless of what they do "few are called, many are chosen". Is this a reference to the amount of people who have been decided by another to suffer? I wonder if this sentence makes any Biblical references.